Teaching Your Child Self-Control, An Executive Functioning Skill

Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit for Believers. As adults who know Jesus, we have the Holy Spirit to produce good fruit as we abide in the Vine (Jesus). Self-control is one of nine fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). Children, however, need to be taught how to properly handle and control their actions, impulses, and emotions. This takes time, patience, training, and this is the perfect age to begin the long-term process.

For children ages 2-5, the strategy of a time-out can be effective. This can be a chair or a certain location where the child can “take a break” and be provided time to gather him or herself and practice gaining control of the burst of emotion and/or the disobedient behavior. It is helpful if a parent explains the purpose of “taking a break” which is to teach a child that time-out provides removal from the situation, allowing time for the child to decompress and think about his/her behavior. There is no need to talk a lot to your child during this process. Once calm, the child should be able to say his wrong behavior (confess sin), apologize if necessary, and express a better choice next time. Keep it short!

I recall when visiting my grandchildren, one little guy was having a melt-down. I had left the room and upon returning, I noticed the child was missing. When inquiring about his whereabouts, my daughter replied, “He put himself in time-out.”  At only 3, he was being taught how to manage his impulsive behavior and emotional outburst by giving himself time and space. He took upon himself the necessary action to reset his emotional outburst. Later, there was a short resolution.

The older the child, the more you can engage in conversation when the child is calm. Simply inquire of the wrong attitude/behavior and allow the child to tell you what he/she could do differently next time. An important step is to identify the strong emotion and help your child with the proper handling of it as he practices self-control. Teaching your child to walk away from a stressful situation, which provides time to cool off, is a good strategy. When calm, circle back appropriately. 

There are a couple of factors that can negatively impact a child’s ability to exercise self-control: immaturity, lack of sleep, outside stress, and a hurried lifestyle. While these are not excuses for misbehaving, a parent should be mindful of these factors. You’ve heard of the term “acting out.” In some cases, children will act out when the pace of life gets to be too much. While a child may not be able to understand this “acting out,” a wise parent will be able to “read” the child and adjust accordingly. Preschool children need ample down-time to play outside and to be allowed agency over alone-time play.  For example, give your child alone-time play in his bedroom without other noise and/or disruptions from a sibling. Even looking at books quietly can be wonderfully refreshing for a young child. Most children need this down-time; however, they are unable to verbalize it. 

I think it is important to set behavioral boundaries between siblings. For example, being upset at a sibling when she grabs a child’s toy is understandable, but it is never acceptable to hit her. Teach your child other acceptable ways to express frustration and give kudos for exhibiting self-control. Teach your child to use her words and if that doesn’t remedy the issue, the child should go to an adult for help – parent or teacher. It is important for parents to remain calm during these conflicts and to be able to detach from emotional engagement to model self-control. Take a minute for yourself so you don’t react with an emotionally charged response. That only complicates matters.

When one of my children exhibited on-going anger over various situations, we wrote Proverbs that correlated to anger and self-control, and placed those verses on the refrigerator for memory work. We used terms like “pressing the pause button” to be a key phrase for regrouping to exercise self-control. And then, we did a silly thing by saying, “Take the anger and throw it away,” while motioning with our hand to our head, gathering the anger with our fingers and then discarding it. Silly, I know, and we still laugh about it to this day!  While the technique brought humor, I can say the Lord faithfully answered our prayers years ago, and this adult child is a mild-mannered individual today.

As parents, modeling self-control in various situations is paramount. For example, start with little things like a disappointment or how to hold your tongue. Narrate the situation for your child and allow your child to see you handle the disappointment in a calm, positive manner. Similarly, perhaps your child was privy to a time when you chose to not defend yourself, nor bark back unrighteous thoughts. Use this as an example of self-control in holding your tongue. 

Here’s an interesting fact according to Building Executive Functioning in Children, p. 36. “The amount of screen time correlates positively with children and self-control. One study showed that children who spent more time watching TV and playing with touch screens had lower scores on tests that required them to focus, pay attention, and exhibit self-control when tested a year later.”  I strongly recommend books over screens! If your child cannot detach from a screen without a meltdown, you need to reconsider screen-time. 

As parents, it is important to model self-control with your devices. When your behavior is contrary to your words, your children will follow what you do, not what you say. Decide what guidelines you and your spouse want to activate related to screen-time at home. Perhaps, the phone is off-limits from 6-9 pm. It seems unfair to a child when he is expected to do something that his parent hasn’t even been able to do. Teach your child how to handle the digital world wisely through your own wise example now; those little eyes are watching and learning. Digital Sabbath, anyone?

Proverbs 16:32 says in The Living Bible paraphrase, “It is better to be slow-tempered than famous; it is better to have self-control than to control an army.”  It’s not too early to begin teaching and nurturing self-control in your child as an important life skill. Set the stage for your child to exercise self-control by providing ample sleep, a healthy diet (watch the sugar!), exercise/free play/fresh air, expressions of love, established routines and known expectations, prayer cover, plenty of laughter, and a low stress environment appropriate to his or her age. The process of teaching your child to exercise self-control takes time, patience, consistency, self-sacrifice, and an abundance of energy, but the dividends are huge for your child.